


apricity

by kaliforniabird



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Friendship, Romance, Uchiha Sasuke-centric, musings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-02 11:56:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8666527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaliforniabird/pseuds/kaliforniabird
Summary: apricity (noun) : the warmth of the sun in winter





	1. LETHOBENTHOS

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is a recounting of personal moments shared between Sasuke and Sakura from Sasuke's perspective. To be clear, in this ramble, he is not by any means in love with Sakura. Any comments that hint otherwise are mostly exaggerated feelings of relief and gratitude that appear in feverous delirium. 
> 
> In fact, to him at least, any sort of romantic feelings that he might have for her go unacknowledged until much, much later. The majority of the encounters he has with her evoke strong emotions, but he correctly labels them platonic - he views her as a very dear friend and comrade. Relationships that start out with the partners knowing each other emotionally - without romance to what I think somewhat detracts from the very powerful compassion between them - is much more rewarding than if the feelings were mutually romantic from the start. It shows a sort of growth and evolution of the relationship that satisfies me.

* * *

_lethobenos (noun):_  the habit of forgetting how important someone is to you until you see them again in person

* * *

 

The first time she holds him as if her very body is his shelter, he isn’t really fully conscious of what he’s doing, but he clutches at anything that can ground him as some sort of reassurance. The pain drums through him, like acid disintegrating his very cells. The epicenter of the waves is his neck. Everything is agony, and he wants to writhe, but it physically seizes him, and the more he moves, the quicker he’s becoming fatigued.

She catches him in her arms, slips her fingers around his palm, squeezes back when he almost breaks her hand from the relief. She half-carries him as she walks and leaps short distances gingerly, afraid to drop him and afraid that she’ll collapse from the chakra drain.

He is so thankful. He smells her, and though her soaps and perfume are the nondescript lighter, airier scents most girls have, to him it is a blessing in the hell he’s gritting his teeth against, fighting not to yell in her ear anymore. He hates that he is weak and that she sees him like this.

Yet he is thankful that it is her alone who sees him like this. He is thankful for her gentle hands as she lays his body down like it is fragile on soft earth, damp and cool from the deep shadows the hollow of the tree trunk offers. He considers kissing her when he wakes up because of the cool cloth she spreads and smooths on his forehead to ward off the fever. He wants to cry and apologize for ever seeming indifferent to her affection.

These thoughts are shoved down when he sees her again, beaten and hurt at the hands of a merciless enemy. She had tried so hard to protect him and Naruto, using all she had and resorting to nearly sacrificing herself for their sake. She looked scared and vulnerable, and his anger shot through him like lightning.

She was one of the only ones left he cared about in this world. Her easy smiles, her praise, her fluid laughter, her garish hair, her soothing touch, all so precious to him. One of his dear, dear friends.

Her hand was like that of his mother’s, he thought. They were so similar. Doting on him and spurring him on because they believed in him.

His mother? No, she was gone now. She would never walk this plane again. She would never offer words of encouragement again, and neither would she grace him with the warmest arms or place a cool compress on his temple when he took fever.

Yet Sakura, who, as a stranger, had done all of these things for him, _just for his sake_ , held a different niche unlike that of his affection for his mother. The feelings he had for her, he knew, were foreign, alien, and overall, selfish. She was the only soft, comforting thing he had left in this world. He’d already lost comfort once.

No one would ever take that away from him again.

That’s why when she wraps those familiar arms around his middle he stops. It is only because of her that he listens, and he only does it for her. Because she’s crying through her blackened eyes, reduced to slits in their swelling, and he can feel the wetness cling to his shoulder blades through his shirt. The sight of her is too pathetic, _she’s so scared_ , and all she can do is cry for him. It hurts him to see her this way, so desperate and beaten down while so uncaring for her own wellbeing to a point of selflessness, all for saving him from himself.

 _What have I done?_ It’s the question that haunts him when he sees the horror in her eyes, eyes that are clearly saying, _“This isn’t you.”_


	2. KILLOCK

* * *

_killick (also spelled killock) (noun):_ a small anchor or weight for mooring a boat, sometimes consisting of a stone secured by pieces of wood; any anchor

* * *

 

The second time she embraces him is in the hospital. He is pulled from a place deep down and dark within himself, his body heavy and a hard pain in his skull echoing against his ears and eyes. She practically jumps on him in her enthusiasm to see him awake. He squints at the white fluorescents what little he can; his eyes are still leaden with sleep.

Her scent finds his nose, and he’s relieved again. It’s selfish, but he allows her to hold him for a long while, gathering his bearings and breathing her in. She beams in a place that smells so much like alcohol and other cold, sterile chemicals.

The guilt and sadness from his comatose nightmares linger with him, but he so needs her warmth right now to chase the shadows away. She is his one comfort, at least for the moment.

He indulges himself, but he is careful not to return the embrace, even as she cries for him, a sound that releases all of the worry, all of the desperation, all of the frustration she’s had for him, waiting, always waiting, wanting him to _be_ the Sasuke Uchiha she knows—fierce in everything there is. And now he’s back, and he hears the rejoicing in her voice when she breathes his name in relief and celebration. Not even in this moment, when he is genuinely touched by her feelings for him, does he allow his own to show.

Because his decision has been made, and she’s the first one he needs to cut off in order to leave this forsaken village without any lingering regret in choosing this hard choice. He needs to do what he can to move forward and become stronger. He needs the closure revenge on his brother offers him—a peace of mind.

It will be one of the most painful things he must do for this goal.

He doesn’t want to leave her. He doesn’t want to worry about her while he’s away, gone from her life. He doesn’t want to think about her forgetting about him, moving on, and living in such a way that he can’t fathom. He doesn’t want to make her cry either for that matter. It’s almost worst, thinking that she’ll wait for him like a lost hound in the rain, waiting until she wears away. Thinking she’s waited in vain because it’s like he’s died.

Because he’s not coming back.

This really will be the final farewell. He’ll never see her again, and the thought makes his heart clench painfully. He doesn’t want to forget about her or her feelings of adoration for him. He doesn’t want to hurt her like this. Yet there is no other way, no other alternative.


	3. SILIENCE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: A lot of the content in this chapter is likely redundant, but then again, this is a drabble.
> 
> In addition, many of the words I'm using in the chapter title and even the work title are words that are either rarely used or they come from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. 
> 
> So, no, the chapter title is not a typo.

* * *

_silience (noun):_   the kind of unnoticed excellence that carries on around you every day, unremarkably—the hidden talents of friends and coworkers

* * *

 

Until she offers it to him.

“Then take me with you,” she begs of him. “Please.”

Fuck, he thinks. Even when he is not facing her, it’s hard to ignore that tone. He instinctively knows that she’s crying, and he hates it. He hates that he has to do this.

It’s so tempting, what she’s offering. Take her with? He could be selfish, just this once, and take a little light with him. He could train and become stronger with her at his side.

And yet, what would she do with herself while he trained? Surely she couldn’t just sit and watch him. That wasn’t Sakura, even with the extent of her devotion to him bordering the obsessive. But it would be too risky to leave her on her own, or worse, with someone like Kabuto or one of Orochimaru’s other subordinates, or even the Sannin himself. What if she got killed? Or experimented on? Or someone took advantage of her? Or taken as a hostage so he couldn’t ever leave? He’d constantly be worried about her. There was no place for her, he knew, in Orochimaru’s hideouts and schemes. It wasn’t safe. And he didn’t like to think about what the darkness would do to her. He was used to the dark—it was a part of him, and he drew power from it. Sakura knew nothing of darkness. There was no place for her there. She would wither in the shadows beside him, while he grew and prospered. He couldn’t do that. That was worse than abandoning her.

He turns to her at last, composing his expression, even going so far as to smirking at her because he’s directing it in a wry, self-deprecating way at himself.

“You’re annoying,” he says at length, knowing these words are harsh after she poured her heart out to him. He rubs salt in the wound, knowing these words are the very ones she feared most should she ever have confessed to him under normal circumstances. He’s insulting her feelings for him as if they are just frivolous things that he doesn’t want or need.

It occurs to him that her feelings are just this. Temporary and weak enough to snap, here and now. They are arbitrary attachments to him and nothing more. She isn’t in love. She’s just infatuated.

It’s easier now, he thinks. He can make her hate him because her feelings are so malleable. He can pretend to hate her by believing that she never loved him, but only merely held the weakest of flames for him—a childhood crush, nothing more.

…only the words hold more than just that. They convey the moments between them – ones he wanted so badly to deny.

He can’t, though. From her confession, to her plea, to her tears churning in river rapids down her tortured face _all for him_ , he owes her that much.

Acknowledgement - something she’d been looking for but hadn’t found. He gives it to her behind pretenses in gossamer vagueness, carefully veiled because he is all about discreetness. It is who he is and how he was trained. The damnable part of him secretly wishes she’d see through him – because he doesn’t want her to hate him, even if it’s for the best.

The dominant part of him, however, is openly amused in a condemning way. His mouth has drawn into that wretched mockery of a smile and his eyes hold a sardonic spark in them.

He’s said this to her before when he’s been irritated with her behavior. And this was the end-all of every grating moment he’s spent with her.

The irony is so much more, though, he thinks. When he’s told her these things before, it was in the heat of the moment, his eyes flashing dangerously in a glare as he fervently willed her to catch onto the fact that he’s snapped the words at her for a reason. He’s silently telling her, _“Shut up,”_ or _“Knock it off.”_ Always an effort to put her to a stop.

Now the tables are turned. She hasn’t said the magic words, but every one of her words screams for him to stop. And when he does say the words, they aren’t spoken harshly, but rather in a sort of reverence for the ritual. The shoe is on the other foot, and maybe it’s evidence of the shadow of his feelings he’s trying desperately to shove down or his fragile sanity that he’s giving her a twisted sort of acknowledgement despite everything he’s done that says otherwise.

Unwittingly, he admits, her feelings have been received, and they touch him. She’s bravely laid herself bare and is reaching out to him despite everything he’s done and said, all of his faults and shortcomings. She overlooks these because she wants _him_ , Sasuke Uchiha, the boy that was her teammate and a companion and maybe one of her dear friends – and not (just) her crush. She wants him to be happy for himself because she cares _so damn much about him._

He’d underestimated her.

So when he finds he must do the inevitable – because this wasn’t nearly as easy as he’d thought it’d be, stubborn girl – he finds he is full of regrets. He is as gentle as possible when he pushes her forcefully into unconsciousness.

“ _Thank you._ ”

The gratitude spills from his lips quietly. He isn’t sure that he’s said that for her comfort or his. Either way, it is heartfelt. His thanks is for everything up till now, this intimate moment between them.

He feels her stiffen at the words because admittedly, they are unexpected. He knocks her out before she can process them, however, and his name falls from her lips in such a way that when he catches her, his hands tighten in an emotion he can’t quite grasp on her shoulders. Remorse, maybe. Some anger, too, though it’s debatable where that is directed. Sakura? Himself? His brother? He doesn’t know and doesn’t think too deeply about it as he scoops her up for the second time ever (and the last), one arm supporting her shoulders and the other under her knees.

He’d forgotten how small she was. Her head is cradled against his chest, her tears soaking the front of his shirt.

This bothers him in several ways, so he swipes a thumb under each eye and across her cheeks when he gingerly sets her down on the bench. It’s cruel, he knows, to leave her here, but he doesn’t have time to spare to take her back to her home (which, where even was that again?). He can’t risk being spotted either.

He consoles his guilt with the thought that the weather is fair and she is close enough to the village that should anything happen, there is help nearby.

And the only enemy that threatens her at the moment is him.

And she is strong, he knows. She is a cunning kunoichi, who can take care of herself and who he knows will grow even stronger in the coming years in his absence.

When he leaves her, he sprints even faster away from the gates than before.


	4. RIGOR SAMSA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rigor samsa (noun): a kind of psychological exoskeleton that can protect you from pain and contain your anxieties, but always ends up cracking under pressure or hollowed out by time-and will keep growing back again and again, until you develop a more sophisticated emotional structure, held up by a strong and flexible spine, built less like a fortress than a cluster of treehouses

“It seems that my old comrade, Sasori, has been defeated,” Orochimaru says, his voice spilling like oil throughout the cavern.

Sasuke’s eyes flash scarlet in the dimness of the space. The snake Sannin’s voice had initially left him feeling disgusted and annoyed when he had first begun training with the man two years ago. Now, however, it is pretentious with its chilling cadence and serpentine-like inflection. His voice grates against Sasuke’s nerves. 

The avenger knows that his current teacher was involved with Akatsuki – the very same organization that Sasuke’s brother, Itachi, was a member of. This Sasori had been Orochimaru’s partner, he gathered, when the snake was still a part of the criminal syndicate.

Whoever Sasori had been, he was very likely not a weak man to have been a part of such an infamous organization, alongside Orochimaru, no less.

Still, Sasuke is skeptical. 

Sensing this doubt, Orochimaru continues. “It seems he was already dead before Kabuto and I carried out the decision to assassinate him.” The snake snickers, an ugly sneer stretching across his white face. “No doubt that I owe my thanks to Sasori’s last opponent. But interestingly enough, that seems to be his grandmother, Grand Elder Chiyo, and…Sakura Haruno, if I’m not mistaken. Wasn’t she a former teammate of yours, Sasuke?”

Sasuke feels a thousand things at once, things that hadn’t stirred since his last encounter with his female teammate. There’s a sort of pride that wells up in him, knowing that she has battled an Akatsuki member and lived to tell the tale. It’s cut with worry, annoyance, a strange grief, and a burning curiosity. Questions flood his mind as he continues to watch his teacher’s every move.

“In fact, it’s said that she devised an antidote to the poison – something that Sasori himself invents, each solution unique and unheard of to even the most respected of medics – in less than 24 hours of saving our young kazekage’s older brother from it.”

“It seems she’s a medical shinobi,” Kabuto adds, adjusting his glasses and gazing sharply at Sasuke, analyzing his reaction. The silver-haired man finds nothing noteworthy in the young Uchiha’s demeanor other than the usual brooding indifference. “Sakura Haruno has been training under the Fifth, Tsunade Senju – a medical genius and one of the Sannin.”

This news sets off a chain reaction of whirlwind emotions inside of Sasuke. The pride in him for his teammate balloons, his curiosity is ignited to a whole new level, and any doubt in her well-being is extinguished. Despite any and all internal effort to wipe the girl from his mind, to deem her insignificant and cut her off as having any sort of place in his heart, she still remains to amaze him. All of his efforts instantly prove to be in vain just like that.

“This kunoichi could prove herself to be useful in the future…” Orochimaru’s soft cackle reaches Sasuke’s ears across the cavern, where only a few minutes before he had been training, blissfully unaware and uncaring of any outside events that did not pertain to his brother or Sasuke’s need for power.

Yet, here he was, his gut filling with dread and a slow-burning resentment. He can’t stand the thought of Orochimaru planning to use Sakura as a tool for one of his insidious schemes. Sasuke still remembers the chuunin exams in the Forest of Death, Sakura frozen in fear and vulnerable, caught in the snake’s illusion of death. He still can remember the feeling of her anxious, shrinking form, trembling violently against him after he jams a kunai knife in his thigh to break the paralysis and leap to the side to carry her to safety.

He needs to derail the subject quickly.

“I have no interest in these things. Your gossip bores me,” Sasuke finally says, his voice effectively callous and sharp. “Leave me now to my training.” 

“Cold as ever, Sasuke.” Kabuto adjusts his glasses one final time before silently turning on his heel to leave.

The snake Sannin chuckles as an Inuzuka chuckles at their pup for attempting to bite their fingers off without the teeth or strength to do it. “Very well, my Sasuke.”


	5. SEMAPHORISM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> semaphorism (noun): a conversational hint that you have something personal to say on the subject but don't go any further-an emphatic nod, a half-told anecdote, an enigmatic 'I know the feeling'-which you place into conversations like those little flags that warn diggers of something buried underground: maybe a cable that secretly powers your house, maybe a fiberoptic link to some foreign country

When he saw her again for the first time after two years had passed since his desertion, he wasn’t sure what to think, or what he had expected. Naruto, he could sense, had changed in that his strength had grown and his chakra had followed this trend. Yet the knucklehead still had that pissed off - albeit slightly shocked in this situation - expression on his tan face. He even still wore an orange jumpsuit that only varied slightly from his original one. The boy’s flamboyance irritated Sasuke, but he didn’t let that show on his face. 

He didn’t let most emotions show anymore. It was rare for any to slip through and register on his face, lest he reveal his inner thoughts.

And Sasuke Uchiha was better than that now. He would compose a mask of complete indifference that spoke of his calm confidence in his own skill and nothing more.

He couldn’t afford any more than that.

A short distance to the right of his old comrade was a man with an eerily similar face to Sasuke’s own. This man differed only in his sickly pale skin, short haircut, and something like a lack of emotion, Sasuke sensed. There was no expression on this man’s face that he could make out with only just a quick glance—quite a skill for someone as practiced as Sasuke was at observing these things, acquired in his undercover assignments issued by Orochimaru.

Then there was one.

She sprinted out of the passageway and into the sunlight. Sasuke took note of her new mission gear and silently approved. It was still the same dark burgundy color she’d donned when they were genin, but this new outfit was seemingly more flexible to her movement and appeared to breathe, unlike her old qipao dress.

At the moment, though, she was bolting forward at an aggressive rate, aiming straight for the man that had Sasuke’s face.

_So_ , Sasuke thought, _she’s moved on by substituting this pale copy for me._

Looking closer, however, Sasuke realized her expression was furious. Her small chakra spiked dangerously in her anger, and a miniscule part of him was relieved at the conclusion that Sakura, in fact, despised this man (whether that was because the man reminded her of Sasuke and took her anger meant for Sasuke out on the man was not clear, but that was of little relevance to him). Yet he allowed himself the hatred that flared at her for her inability to control her chakra and its response to her mood. That along with the insignificant amount of chakra Sakura currently possessed infuriated him. These two years, and she had not changed anything but her clothes. She was still weak and pathetic.

But no, this was what he wanted to think, what he told himself. The harsh judgment of her character was a justification for his wanting, his _needing_ to hate her.                                           

It wasn’t the slightest bit true.

He admired her in an abject way. The way she flew across the field, more like that of a small, fierce bird – a kestrel, he thought – than the flower she was named for. He noticed the way her movements were strangely calculated. Even the more insignificant ones – where she stepped, where she placed her arms and hands, the way she held her head and shoulders. Her posture was precise, but flexible.

Sasuke came to the conclusion that she was conserving every bit of strength she had. No movement was wasted. Every action was made with consideration of minimizing the amount of stamina she could afford to lose and calculating the exact position and angle that yielded the most options with which she could easily evade an attack. 

It was her flightiness that amused him, perhaps, in this new combative strategy style she’d adopted. Kestrel, indeed.

He knew for a fact that she was suppressing her chakra signature to a deceptively low wavelength. There were three pulses within her aura – the full extent of her available reserves, currently suppressed and tamed in what Sasuke figured was instinct for her. The second pulse was her life force, the chakra that kept her alive. And then, peculiarly enough, the third pulse seemed to be concentrated somewhere in her skull.

This third and last pulse he had no idea of what to make of it. It was on an entirely different wavelength from her other two. Stranger still, her current available reserves steadily fed a small stream of chakra to it. Sasuke wasn’t sure if that was entirely a conscious effort or subconscious on Sakura’s, but he could tell that she was aware of it on some level. It would be unusual if she didn’t, given that a third of her chakra was draining from her supply and put on hold.

Was it to enhance her senses? Or perhaps to increase the speed of signals traveling through her brain, thus increasing her processing of a situation? Or was this something he hadn’t heard before – a new jutsu?  

* * *

Sasuke spoke her name with patience, drawling the syllables out temptingly. “Sakura.”

Her name uttered so casually from his lips caught her immediate attention. The fist that had curled the stranger’s shirt over her knuckles and wrenched him closer to her now slackened. Her eyes went wide and her mouth parted, her lips forming his name in a disbelieving, awe-struck breath. “Sasuke…”

Sasuke hated how easy she was to read. Sakura’s face was an open book. The feelings she’d had for him two years ago had never faded, he now knew.

They had only gotten stronger.

Even more so now that she saw him – more so now that he’d said her name in acknowledgment.


End file.
